Presbyterian Butcher: Supplementary Material
by Spiff's Oliphaunt
Summary: Supplementary material for "The Presbyterian Butcher"
1. Chapter 1

All courtesy of AlternateHistory user HongCanucker

 **THEODORE ROOSEVELT**

Born in New York City to a wealthy family in 1858, Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt became a national hero in 1881 during the Second Mexican War after his victory in the Battle of Teton River in the Montana Territory. After his return to New York, he entered politics in the state's General Assembly, and quickly rose through the ranks of the Democratic Party, becoming famous as a progressive and wild-card legislator. Among his achievements during his tenure of different high-ranking government positions at the federal and state levels include his support of the creation of the General Staff, the equipping of U.S forces with the M1903 Springfield bolt-action rifle, the creation of primary elections, the outlawing of child-labour and institution of a minimum wage in New York, and the expansion of the federal government's civil service.

Roosevelt would take the office of the presidency in 1913 after defeating the incumbent President Nelson Aldrich and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge for the Democratic Party nomination, and his Socialist rival Eugene V. Debs for the top spot. When war broke out in 1914, Roosevelt enthusiastically supported the war and cleaned the military by relieving older officers of their positions and placing more enthusiastic and inspirational commanders on the frontlines. He also spent time in the trenches during the midst of battle, and narrowly survived death on at least one occassion - one particular episode on the Roanoke Front had him tackled and narrowly saved by future pacifist movement leader Chester Martin. These measures, however, would come to naught after Operation Longsword led to the encirclement of Philadelphia, and the assassination of Roosevelt himself by Socialist extremist John Reed on June 6, 1917 was the death knell for the United States in the war.

Today, Roosevelt is remembered very fondly by many people around the world. Many Americans consider him one of the greatest Presidents in U.S history, and he is held in high regard for his energetic personality and his "cowboy" demeanor. Roosevelt is also widely respected in the Confederate States, Canada and the United Kingdom as a fearsome yet inspirational adversary in a time when his country needed one. He is one of the most respected Great War leaders of the Central Powers nations, and consistently ranks as one of the best U.S Presidents in surveys conducted in many parts of the world.

 **GEORGE CUSTER**

George Armstrong Custer was a career officer in the United States Army. He saw action in three wars fought between the United States and the Confederate States. In the War of Secession, he served as an aide to General George McClellan at the Army of the Potomac's headquarters; he arose as one of the few victorious U.S. commanders in the Second Mexican War; and commanded the initial U.S Army drive into Kentucky before suddenly dying in 1916.

Although he'd fought in the War of Secession, and battled Plains Indians in Kansas during the interwar period, it was in the Second Mexican War that Custer rose in the national consciousness. He commanded a cavalry regiment which helped pacify the first Mormon rebellion in Utah. Custer and his superior, John Pope, developed such a brutal policy against Mormons and suspected polygamists, that the hearts and minds of the citizens of Utah were forever lost to the United States. Nonetheless, Pope and Custer broke the rebellion, forcing the Mormons to quietly simmer for the next three decades. (It is also noted that despite Custer's demeaning views on the Mormons's practice of polygamy, he was hypocritically a notorious womanizer even when he was married.)

However, it was the fighting in Montana that put Custer's star on the rise, as he had an important role in one of the few victories the U.S. had in that war: the defeat of a British force commanded by Charles George Gordon. Custer had help from Theodore Roosevelt's Unauthorized Regiment, and Colonel Henry Welton's Seventh Infantry. The later had put the newly introduced Gatling guns to use in mowing down British infantry, despite Custer's contempt for the modern weapons.

This battle was to shape Custer's remaining career. His beloved brother Tom was killed by British forces, and this instilled in Custer a lifelong hatred for the Canadians. The fact that the war had ended just prior to the battle added salt to the wound. Further, as the facts of the battle were sorted and credit parsed, Custer found himself in competition with Roosevelt for the national limelight. The two were to remain bitter rivals for the remainder of their lives. Finally, despite the obvious success of the Gatling guns, Custer maintained a certain contempt for modernity, believing that battles could be won by sheer numbers alone, a belief he put into operation during the Great War with horrifying results.

In the Great War, Custer was given command of the US First Army in Kentucky. Many of his policies were questionable, including his insistance of sending his infantry straight at the enemy without consideration for the defensive positions allowed by trench warfare. This myopia cost many lives, despite the best efforts and advice of his adjutant, future U.S Army Major General Abner Dowling. Dowling was quietly contemptuous of Custer's vanity. Not only did Custer continue to dye his long hair blond, he drank surreptitiously and pursued women less than half his age and, for that matter, less than a third of his age.

In spite of himself, Custer became a hero. His approach of throwing men into the lines eventually wore down the C.S. Army opposing him, with its far more limited manpower. Moreover, despite his disdain for military modernity, Custer was one of the first people to see the importance tanks could have in war. Alas, he was unable to develop and execute a strategy to utilize them like his enemies did later that year, as he died of a sudden heart attack on June 25, 1916. Shortly afterwards his army would be routed and forced out of Kentucky by the Confederate States, and by late 1917 the men under his command were exhausted and forced to surrender.

Today, Custer is seen as somewhat of a folk hero in many circles in the United States. His remarkable actions and notably his fighting spirit while battling the Indians, Confederates and Canadians are still widely remembered and appreciated by not just Americans, but also Confederates and Canadians. Custer, however, is seen in a much darker light by the Mormons, who consider his actions against their ancestors in Utah during the First Mormon Uprising to be very cruel and a heinous war crime of his time. Regardless, Custer is still remembered by many military historians as the man who had the potential to turn the war around in the United States' favor, and many alternate history writers have postulated what might have happened had Custer been able to plan and execute longsword-style tank tactics during the war instead of his enemies.

 **JOHN PERSHING**

John Joseph Pershing was a successful general in the United States Army during the Great War, and later the Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the interwar period until his death in 1934.

Born on a farm in Missouri in 1860, in 1881, after Republican James G. Blaine took the office of the presidency, Pershing quickly enlisted in the United States Army, hoping to have a chance to fight against the Confederate States. He became a remarkable and adept soldier, and was commended by his superiors as a natural leader with a remarkable ability for command. After the war ended abruptly in 1882, Pershing applied to and was accepted by the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, where he was also commended by his teachers for his exceptional leadership skills. In 1884 he also took part in a two-year exchange program and was sent to the Prussian Military Academy in Germany, where he was able to further enhance and practice his gift.

After returning to the United States in 1886, Pershing served in the Midwest, where he spent four years battling the Plains Indians, and very nearly getting killed at times. He became famous and respected by the men under his for his leadership skills and expert marksmanship, which proved handy when fighting the Natives, and was able to rise through the ranks of the Army, before receiving an appointment to be an instructor at West Point, his alma mater, in 1896.

Pershing would spend four years at the academy before returning to active duty fighting Indian raids in his home state of Missouri. His experience from the conflict led him to receive multiple diplomatic postings. In 1903 he became the military attaché of the United States embassy to Austria-Hungary, and helped oversee the sharing of bolt-action rifle technology between the nations of the Triple Alliance after the deployment of the Gewehr 98 and M1903 Springfield rifles. He would hold the post, as well as numerous others, until Nelson Aldrich's ascension to the presidency, when Pershing would finally be promoted to a colonel. Theodore Roosevelt's ascension four years later gave Pershing the rank of a lieutenant general and command of the Second Army.

Under Pershing, the U.S. Second Army fought primarily in eastern Kentucky and then Tennessee when the Great War began. He managed his campaign well, even taking Louisville by going in from the flanks rather than straight on as had happened during the Second Mexican War. George Armstrong Custer, commander of First Army, soon saw Pershing as a rival, taking whatever opportunities he could to deride the younger man. Second Army fought right alongside First Army until the end of the war. After Custer's sudden death in 1916, Pershing was reported to become increasingly ill and stressed as a result of the need to command two of the United States' field armies, and subsequently became very reluctant in his decision-making. After the Longsword Offensive's launch in 1917, Pershing could do nothing as Confederate tanks plowed through his lines and forced his army to retreat, losing the gains he had made through a brutal slog of three long years in just eight weeks. He was reported to have spent the last few days of the war alone in his office muttering obscenities at his enemies and vowing the United States would finally get her revenge.

After the war, Pershing continued his assignment as the greatly reduced Second Army's commander, and he worked with Custer's former adjutant, Abner Dowling, as his second-in-command. Despite Dowling's prior association with Custer, he and Pershing found they were able to work quite well together – as Custer himself had found when stationed in Utah over forty years earlier, during the Second Mexican War, as second-in-command to John Pope, a rival of Custer's old superior, George McClellan. During this time, Pershing became a proponent of theories that the United States would eventually be destined to rule the continent as a colossus straddling Alaska to Cuba, and called it "the final stage in achieving our Manifest Destiny". While never as virulently racist nor as ideologically influenced as the Nazi vision of _Lebensraum_ , both had similar visions of their respective countries (the United States and Germany) conquering large amounts of their enemies' territory and annexing it as their own.

In 1922, Pershing left his field command and joined the General Staff. He was reported to have been a relatively aloof figure, preferring face-to-face discussions with a select few, and spent most of his time in his Philadelphia office with his new adjutant, Major John Abell. Although a career Democrat, Pershing chose to abstain from domestic politics, although he expressed support for the National Patriotic Party's jingoistic policies. Gordon McSweeney, however, wanted nothing to do with him, and dismissed him as yet another Democratic incompetent who had helped them to lose the war. However, after the Great Depression entered its worst times and the Patriots began gaining ground among the electorate, Pershing became open to the true extent of the Patriots' power and what it might mean for the United States. He immediately opposed McSweeney's calls for a new war in North America, and in doing so made himself an enemy of the NPPA. After the Butcher took power in 1933, the McSweeney administration attempted to coerce Pershing to step down and quietly retire. When he resisted, he died the next year in his War Department office, ostensibly and officially due to a heart attack, though many suspected murder by the Patriots.


	2. Chapter 2

_The following is supplementary material for_ The Presbyterian Butcher, _courtesy of the many wonderful users of AlternateHistory . com_

Courtesy of AlternateHistory User "Liberate Palestine

 **From the Journal of Landon Pierce (then Age 16)  
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America  
January 20, 1933**

Honestly, I did not want to write this journal. I'm only doing this because my mom says it's a good idea for me to reflect on the past. Well, if the past in the future is about the war that everyone's been saying will happen soon, I'm scared. I see no future in that.

I was there. Yes, I was watching the inauguration of President McSweeney in person today, and frankly, even with the cold taking my mind off some of the parts of his inauguration speech, it was quite horrifying, listening to the President's hateful words, which I didn't understand at first, but as time went on, I began to understand more and more of what he was hinting at. And the screams of the people assembled there, their voices hoarse with hate. Even Mother and my brothers were all screaming, as if Father could hear them in heaven. I could swear that a woman who looked like a Jew was crying next to me – I remember her face from somewhere in the papers, but can't seem to recall accurately. Oh dear God, what are we coming to?

I dislike – nay, hate the NPPA. They do nothing more than preach messages of hate, and I believe they are horribly misguided in their goals and ambitions of achieving everything unsustainable towards peace. War. Racism. Hate. All things that serve to make our world worse, not better. If I could vote, I would have gone for the Republicans, or even the Socialists. At least they would have done things properly, unlike what McSweeney has in mind.

If there is anything to look forward to, I guess it would be the Olympics. The voting was ended two years ago, during the Depression, when Philly was selected for the Games over other candidate cities like Richmond and London, and I guess that's a good thing, because I believe in the ability of sport to bring together people through friendship. Of course, with the fiery hatred coming from McSweeney and his goons, it's hard to imagine how that will be like when he opens the Games with a terrifying speech that basically denounces everyone he hates – Jews, Mormons, Negroes, the lot – it can be expected that the spirit will be very…interesting.

Anyway, in outside news, it looks like the CSA and Canada, our neighbors to the north and south, are looking a bit…edgy…over McSweeney's inauguration, and it appears they've been beefing up security across the border. Same situation with France, Poland and Red Russia. In Europe things are becoming worse and worse. Germany has become increasingly racist and nationalistic as the right-wing Nazis and their leader, Adolf Hitler, have managed to edge their way into power in their version of Congress, and are consolidating their power by cracking down on opposition like socialists and liberal democrats, so I'm very worried that the same will happen here in the USA too. There are rumors circulating that Hitler will become Chancellor of Germany soon, and an alliance between the Patriots and the Nazis would be... terrible, for all.

I'm scared for the future. I do not want to see another war. I never knew my father – he died towards the end of the war on a ship only minutes before the armistice was announced, just the day after I was born. I also lost my uncle during the taking of Philadelphia. I do not want to live those horrors again, but it seems like I will have to. I am truly scared, not just for myself, but for my brothers, my mother, and everyone else.

Anyway, Mother is calling me down for supper. I'll write again soon.


	3. Chapter 3

div style="font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #f5f5ff;"emCourtesy of AlternateHistory user "Schlitzkrieg"/em/div  
div style="font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #f5f5ff;" /div  
div id="post_message_9596275" style="font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #f5f5ff;"emExcerpt from "By Necessity: Race Relations in the C.S.A." br /© 1981 Dr. Justin K. Armbrusterbr /© 1981 University of Clemson Pressbr /Clemson, South Carolina, C.S.A./embr /br /Though the Razorback Offensive is generally considered the point where the fulcrum of the Great War shifted decisively in favor of the Confederacy, there is little doubt that the early discovery of the simmering Red Negro rebellions of 1915-16 averted a threat to internal security that would have crippled the war effort. br /br /Then an artillery sergeant in the First Virginia Howitzers, future general Jacob "Jake" Featherston was credited for sounding the alarm about his commanding officer's colored servant Pompey. Interrogation of the suspect revealed the existence of cells of Negroes who had come under the influence of Socialist rhetoric. The so-called Red Negroes had sleeper agents not only in the Army of Northern Virginia, the wall protecting Richmond from Yankee incursion, but throughout the entire Confederacy. They were in the process of gathering arms and they were past ready to lash out at a system that had long oppressed them. What damage might have been done could only be left to speculation, but had the Red Negro rebellions been allowed the time to consolidate, only the most optimistic prognosticator foresees a Confederacy that would have seen eventual victory on the field of battle. br /br /The discovery of the uprising sent a shudder through the entire Confederacy, and it was a teaching moment for the entire society. Suspicion of secret Red cells lasted until deep into the Second Great War, and it is a virtual certainty that not much more than the heads were cut off the ones that were certainly discovered. How many of the rest of the Confederacy's blacks sympathetic to the Marxist cause will never be known. It was a tenuous moment, one of those upon which all of history might have pivoted. br /br /Whatever the truth of this matter, the Red Negro uprisings were defused in large part before they ever got off the ground. Only a few, such as the Congaree Socialist Republic in South Carolina, managed so much as to fire shots at their white masters. Led by a resourceful band of servants of the Marshlands Plantation, this band of Marxist rebels, as most others like them, were quickly extinguished. br /br /Distrust remained, but in parts of the Confederacy where the Red cells had been discovered and quickly eliminated, Negroes largely remained docile and hard-working. At a time where the military situation was deadlocked on all fronts, the idea of allowing Negroes to join the Confederate Army was no longer the half-serious whisperings of increasingly nervous politicians. Manpower was always at a premium, and the stalemate would almost certainly favor the United States in the long run. People openly considered the question of arming blacks and putting them on the lines. Much strife had already resulted from blacks entering factory work and taking jobs vacated by conscripted whites. The war effort would be even worse without their contributions. br /br /The Negro Military Service Act of 1916 was signed into law by President Gabriel Semmes on May 29th of that year. br /br /To this day, no one other than Col. George S. Patton knows, for certain, the identity of the black private whose suggestion of massing tanks for a directed strike at enemy lines formed the nucleus of his Razorback Offensive. Patton's legend as a military officer began with the slashing success of this operation, but throughout the remainder of his life, he never failed to credit the soldier, though always insisted that he would have identified the name of that soldier had the soldier not requested anonymity. True to his sense of personal honor, Patton similarly took the secret to his grave, never noting the name even in his diaries or other personal documents. br /br /While the identity of the soldier will probably never be known, what is much more certain is that tapping the vast pool of black manpower for the Confederacy kept the lines together long enough for Razorback to be planned and deployed. What is also just as certain is that the black soldiers of the Confederacy served as ably and doggedly as their white peers under fire, and however reluctant, the recognition of this fact by Confederate whites was what put the country on its first steps towards the true normalization of relations between whites and coloreds./div 


	4. Chapter 4

Courtesy of AlternateHistory user LiberatePalestine

 **"Over Open Fields: How We Fought At Home" by Arthur MacGregor, Leader of the Canadian Resistance, Southern Manitoba Branch, 1956  
Prologue**

For the record, war is always worse than a bad harvest, especially if you're in the thick of it. Period. The newfangled combine harvesters the government introduced that have made life so much easier for me and my friends here in Rosenfeld and other farming communities across Canada might have lowered the rate at which one of us dies, but in war, nations will always pump out new weapons that find new ways to kill you. As we saw with the superbombs the Confederates and British used against the Yankees and Huns, and the rockets the Nazis (but thankfully not the Patriots) used against Britain and France, we've come a long way from when several slashes at the neck by a curved and sharp blade were barely enough to cause a quick and painful death.

There are times, however, when we resort to a more…primitive way of fighting. Attrition. This is what I saw during the Great War, when the Americans invaded Canada. My hometown, Rosenfeld, Manitoba, was, for the most part, an uninteresting farming community that lay just south of the major city of Winnipeg, one of the focal points of the Yank campaign against Canada in an attempt to destroy the supply lines for the Canadians by capturing the Canadian Pacific Railroad and preventing supplies from being shipped from both coasts. The first time they tried that in 1914, they got bogged down just north of my home. They were fighting neck-and-neck with the Canadian and our British overlords in the trenches until they got pushed out in 1917 when the tanks – what they called "barrels" – were introduced, even if more were used in Ontario and Quebec than anywhere else in Canada. Stories I heard from that time are terrible, filled with tales of terror and torture caused by the seemingly unending stalemate.

Myself, I never knew what happened there. I was living a quite life on the farm, seeing no real distinction between Americans and Canadians – that is, until 1915, when the Yanks arrested and subsequently executed my son for something he never did – he was alleged to have sabotaged a section of the railroad, something I knew he'd never do and to this day think of as a Yankee plot to flush out potential saboteurs. Anyway, I became bent on avenging him, and shortly before November 1917 I performed a very daring act – I bombed the office of the American officer who had ordered my son's execution.

Afterwards, the United States combed through the town, and even threatened the death of the town's postmaster, Wilf Rokeby, in an attempt to flush me out. So far, nobody knew, though I suspect I'll have to be turned over at some point, even if the same situation has not quite happened to Frenchmen and later Germans who committed similar acts of mine when Alsace-Lorraine kept changing hands. But I digress. Anyway, it was just my luck when the day I committed the act was the day the American lines had been broken by Canada. The first notice of when this had happened was as the Yanks were bringing out the hostages, including Rokeby, we heard the noises of banging guns and artillery getting closer. Next thing that happened, airplanes – British-made Canadian Camels, mind you, not the Yank Curtisses or Boeings – began flying over the town and machine-gunning the occupational troops. Finally American soldiers came surging through the town headed south en masse shouting one word: Retreat. Our day of liberation had come.

Thankfully, when His Majesty's troops garrisoned the town again, no questions were asked about the bombing, though Rokeby had to be transported to Winnipeg for medical treatment because of a combination of hunger from being mistreated as a prisoner and shock. To be honest, I was just glad to be able to get away, and that night I celebrated by decorating my house in the Blue Ensign and Union Jack, and ate a hearty meal complete with the smashing of a captured Yankee bottle of apple cider.

The next few years were marked by depression for me. Like in the CSA, Canada's farms ran into the issue of having too much supply and not enough demand for the harvest, and soon we began to run out of money, and eventually went bankrupt. Most of my friends soon left for better opportunities in Winnipeg, with a few lucky ones moving to the newly acquired Wabunaki Territory (formerly the U.S state of Maine) as settlers. I stayed at home, determined to weather the times of trouble. My wife, Maude, and my daughters, Julia and Mary, both pitched in as well. By that point, I was becoming an old man, and was having difficulty in working really long days on the farm. But although we had discussed moving out many times, we agreed as a family to stay and keep working.

And then, the Butcher came to power. Naturally, I was afraid, because of the steadfast hatred of Canadians that McSweeney channeled through his speeches – I think we were the third biggest hate of his after the Confederacy and the Jews. But what I found scarier was of all the religious denominations he could have stemmed from, he came from the same church as mine – Presbyterianism. When I found out, I nearly had a heart attack, and I became fearful about whether I might be seen as associated with him. Seeing as though most Manitobans who knew me were actually quite fond of me, and I never took religion as seriously as McSweeney did, I don't think that would have happened, but I wasn't ready to find out myself. I petitioned the United Church of Canada to grant the safety of Canadian Presbyterians from possible reprisals, and I became somewhat of a household name within the Presbyterian community.

The next few years were spent lying low and recovering from the Great Depression, which had hurt my farm and me much harder. Thankfully, the Canadian government's interwar agricultural program, which was based off what the new Conservative government in the CSA was doing to counter the Depression there, gave me an incentive to work again, this time with reasonable payment from the government. I pulled in good harvests, and managed to have enough to feed my family three meals a day, too. By that point, Mary had moved into Winnipeg with her new husband Mort Pomeroy, and that meant the issue of feeding our family wouldn't be so hard.

Then, May 1941 rolled over. And that's when the war began.


	5. Chapter 5

Courtesy of AlternateHistory user HongCanucker

 **Excerpt from The Sun Rises: Japan in the Early 20th Century  
By Professor ****Norman Zuckerman, Princeton** **University, New Jersey, United States of America, 2001**

Japan's emergence as a great power was confirmed following the Hispano-Japanese War of 1900-01, which ended with its seizure of the Philippine Islands, and the Russo-Japanese War of 1905-06, both of which were enormously significant in that the former was the first time an Eastern nation had been able to inflict a stunning military defeat on a Western colonial empire, while the latter had done the same to a true world power. The former also led to Spain's transformation into a republic, and the latter event also precipitated the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the rise of Communism. Japan would later consolidate its gains during the wars by declaring the Philippines open to Japanese settlement and keeping the locals in place, and placing an entire fleet of its modern navy at Port Arthur (now Liaoning, Manchukuo). The fledging empire also annexed its protectorate of Korea, which had been under its control since the end of the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95.

Following the death of Emperor Meiji in 1912, Japan entered a period known as "Taisho Democracy", in which the country instituted a constitutional monarchy under the Emperor Taisho. Japan would enter the Great War on the side of the Entente as a junior member, fulfilling its obligations to the Anglo-Japanese alliance of the early 20th century. The Imperial Japanese Navy launched the first ever seaplane raids, its target being the German Navy at the German concession of Tsingtao in China, from the seaplane tender Wakamiya. While a failure, successive raids conducted by the Royal Navy and United States Navy in both the Atlantic and Pacific proved the worth of aerial combat in a naval setting. The Japanese Navy would take part in the Battle of the Three Navies in 1916, and would also prove instrumental in the British recapture of the Sandwich Islands in mid-1917.

The years after the Great War saw Japan acquire the former German and concessions in China. Japan would also send forces to Siberia and the Russian Far East at the height of the Russian Civil War to bolster the White movement against the Bolsheviks during their march eastwards. However, the Japanese ultimately failed to achieve numerous goals. During the war, in 1915, to consolidate its control in East Asia, the Japanese had drafted a series of demands to the Republic of China's President Yuan Shikai, the infamous Twenty-One Demands, which effectively forced China to cede its sovereignty to Japan and rendered it a Japanese protectorate. Vociferous opposition from the Chinese public and the foreign powers ultimately saw this unequal treaty, which would later be attached to the Treaty of Versailles in 1918, as dropped.

Japan in the early 1920s entered a period of relatively stable economic growth, and reaped the fruits of the prosperity that marked the decade. The period of Taisho Democracy saw the expansion of many civil and political liberties in the country, and the country experienced levels of prosperity similar to those in the nations of the Entente. However, at the same time, Japan was also wracked by numerous crises, such as the 1923 Kanto earthquake which devastated Tokyo, and the resurgence in militaristic and jingoistic ideals among the bureaucracy coupled with the death of Emperor Taisho in 1926 saw the end of Taisho Democracy.

The ascension of the new emperor, Hirohito, saw the gradual rollback of many of the progressive reforms that had marked the Taisho period. Among the Japanese populace, radical nationalist sentiments across the nation would see resurgence, and would spike after the Crash of 1929 and the beginning of the Great Depression. Many new military officials obtained high-ranking positions in the government, and foreign policy took a marked shift from relatively minimal interventionism to very aggressive militarism.

The first of Japan's many foreign endeavors in this decade began with the country facing off against an old foe: China. On September 18, 1931, Japanese saboteurs masquerading as Chinese bandits blew up a section of the Japanese-owned South Manchuria Railway, an acquisition from the Russo-Japanese War. Immediately afterwards, Japanese troops poured into Manchuria from Korea, seizing the region and six months later declaring it the Empire of Manchukuo, under the leadership of the last Qing Dynasty Emperor of China, Puyi. This act, the truth and nature of which were soon revealed to the international community, would draw international condemnation from Japan's former allies of Britain, France and the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, in Japan proper, the country slowly began its shift towards a totalitarian military state, as power became increasingly concentrated in the military and new, racist and aggressive policies would be enacted. Hopes of being able to maintain a stable, reasonably moderate government were dashed following the "League of Blood" assassination plot and the assassination of Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi on May 15, 1932, after which the military government curtailed many of the civil and political freedoms of the past few years and instituted a new authoritarian state.

The end of the rule of law in Japan and beginning of the new military state marked the renewal of Japan's imperial ambitions. On July 7, 1937, following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident near Beijing, the Imperial Japanese Army poured into China, taking advantage of the sectarian divides between the current government (the Republic of China) and the Chinese Communist Party, both of which were engaged in a civil war at the time. The first two years were marked by rapid and overwhelming successes for the Japanese, as their armies swept across eastern and southern China. By the end of July the Japanese had captured the city of Peking, had reached Shanghai in October, and at the end of the year controlled the capital, Nanking. Following the capture of the city on December 13, Japanese soldiers engaged in a brutal and horrific civilian massacre of the city known as the "Rape of Nanking", with approximations of the number of people killed still under debate among many historians today.

As the Second Great War broke out in 1941, Japan seized the opportunity to turn its sights onto the colonies of the other Western powers. Although never formally a member of the Axis Powers due to lingering resentment over the Great War between Japan and the United States, both nations as well as Germany did sign non-aggression pacts, and the Japanese Navy worked in tandem with German advisors during naval exercises. The next three years were marked by the continued expansion of the Japanese military's power and its reach, as the country began building many more ships and placing more guns into more of its citizens' hands, culminating in the launch of the enormous Yamato-class battleships in 1941. Then, on February 7, 1942, the Empire of Japan leaped and struck.


	6. Chapter 6

Courtesy of AlternateHistory user tofer

 **4th July 1917  
Norfolk, Virginia.**

As the _USS Dakota_ dropped anchor in the Elizabeth River, Sam Carsten looked out over the city of Norfolk and turned to Hiram Kidde. "I wish we could drop a few rounds over there."

"We could smash that city up lovely, Sam, wouldn't even need to bother with the big guns," replied Kidde."

"Can't see them being too happy if we did," chimed in Vic Crosetti, gesturing over the starboard side of the _Dakota_ at another warship lying at anchor about 8000 yards away. The gun crew turned to watch the other vessel, the white ensign flying from her stern and a Vice Admiral's command flag flying from the mainmast.

" _King George the Fifth_ ," said Carsten, reading the name from her stern

"I thought we'd had enough of Limey King Georges over here," broke in Crosetti.

"Well looks like we're done boys," said Kidde "It's been an honor serving with you, couldn't ask for a finer gun crew."

"It's not fair" grumbled Carsten "it was the army that lost the war, the Limeys never whipped us."

"Yeah, you never beat us" scowled Luke Hoskins in the direction of the British flagship.

"Come on men, let's bear up and do this" the crew turned around to see Commander Grady walking along the deck towards them. Behind them the Admiral's barge was being swung out and a side party was falling in for Admiral Fiske to leave his flagship for the last time.

A signal lamp started flashing from the British flagship, "stars…and…stripes…to…be…hauled…down…at…sunset…and …not…flown…again...without…permission" spelled out Kidde.

Carsten left the _Dakota_ himself about a week later, ferried ashore with a boatload of other sailors. As they left the _Dakota_ they sailed down between the two lines of armoured behemoths, British one side, American on the other, curious faces peered down at the Americans from their decks.

"They're just like us," said a nearby sailor.

"What did you expect? Two heads?" snapped a stoker.

For a moment Sam thought there would be a fight in the boat but then the first sailor said, "Aww, to hell with it, and to hell with those Limeys."

The boat curved around behind the U.S. warships and Sam caught a glimpse of the handful of Confederate Navy battleships and cruisers moored alongside the Confederate naval base. The boat, along with many others from other U.S. ships was heading towards a huge 4 funneled ocean liner anchored just past the naval base.

Coal dust rose from the port side as the liner's crew filled her bunkers from the long coal barges, the flotilla of boats swept past them and around under her stern to the cargo nets that had been hung down the ship's dazzle painted side. Sam scrambled aboard up the ladder onto the _Titanic_. Upon arrival in New York a couple of days later Sam reported to the Naval Yard and was promptly discharged from the U.S. Navy, given his wages owed and issued a travel warrant. He walked out of the Naval Yard as a civilian for the first time in seven years.

"Now what?" he thought.

 **Lost voices of the American Holocaust.  
Briggs, G., 2001, Oxford University Press, Oxford.**

 _Sheldon Fleischmann, Jewish Butcher from New York._

Well there was a lot a intimidation and violence in those days, especially from the Patriotic Legion thugs. Before my father died he told me that some Soldiers' Circle men once brought pork grease into the shop and he had to get the Rhabbi to cleanse it. So there was always harassment but this was worse, more sinister. There was graffiti outside the shop. One night every Jewish shop had it's windows broken, then there was the constant abuse from people on the street.

It got worse after that Hamburger kid tried to kill McSweeney, I knew his sister, she was into politics in some way. The socialists had an office upstairs, I remember helping father to make up trays of cold cuts for them once.

Well one night just after the election I was getting ready to close up the shop when three of those Legion thugs came in to shake me down for 'protection' but they wanted more than I had in the shop, one had my arm behind my back pinning me to the counter whilst the other emptied the cash register.

Then this man came into the shop brandishing a metal bar and challenged them. Well they told him to get out if he knew what was good for him but he took at one with the bar and knocked him clean out, the other two picked him up and ran. He didn't stay, just asked of I needed help and when I shook my head he disappeared. I thought I had seen a ghost, he was so pale, almost like one of those Albinos. I never saw him again.

A few days later there was a body found in an alley nearby. The police came around asking if anyone had seen anything, but I was too scared to say anything. I kept quiet. I still wonder what happened to that man and who he was.

 _Sheldon Fleischmann spent three years in Sioux Falls Correctional Camp, a notorious concentration camp operated by Patriotic Guard murderer and sadist Brigade Leader Cannizzaro, before being liberated in late 1945 by a Canadian-British joint taskforce. He died peacefully in 1972 in his home in New York. This interview was recorded in 1964 as part of the_ 'American Lives' _oral history project._

 **Dreadnought Navy, Lambert, A., 2002, Oxford University Press, Oxford**

Following the stalemate of Jutland in May 1916, the High Seas Fleet again attempted to break out into the Atlantic in November 1916. The crushing defeat inflicted on the High Seas Fleet by the Grand Fleet, with the loss of two German battle-cruisers and three battleships with two more severely damaged in exchange for a British battle-cruiser sunk and two battleships damaged was the last attempt to break out and join the U.S. Atlantic Fleet. By January 1917 the British Admiralty were confident enough to send the 2nd Battle Squadron to help the Confederate Navy. The Battle of George's Bank in which the U.S. Atlantic Fleet was roughly handled by the combined British/Confederate fleet lead to the transfer of Admiral Fiske's task force from the Sandwich Islands to the Atlantic. This reduction of the Pacific Fleet allowed the Anglo-Japanese task force to cut off and recapture the islands in early 1917.

 **The Rise and Fall of US Naval Power, Anderson, J., 1992, HarperCollins, New York.**

Following the cease fire request the U.S. fleet was interred by the victorious Allies, the Atlantic fleet was collected at Norfolk, Virgina under the guns of the British 2nd Battle Squadron, and the remnants of the Pacific Fleet were held at Pearl Harbor under the guard of the Anglo-Japanese Combined Striking Force. Most of the crews were repatriated by late August 1917 and only an anchor watch remained on board along with Marine guards from the Allies. The Treaty of Trenton had stipulated that the US warships were to be handed over to the Allies, as preparations were being made for this, on the 3rd of September 1917, the 2nd Battle Squadron put to sea to meet the liner carrying the King and Prime Minister to meet with the Confederate Government. Taking advantage of this a group of engineering officers on the _USS_ _Dakota_ overwhelmed the guards on the bridge and ran up the Stars and Stripes. As response forces scrambled from shore and other guards on nearby ships were distracted, the remaining crews opened the seacocks and detonated the scuttling charges. Confederate forces were unable to respond in time and the pride of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet slipped beneath the waves. The British were privately relieved that the bulk of U.S. naval power was gone as they had the interred High Seas Fleet to deal with, and they didn't really want to see that many capital ships added to the Confederate Navy. The scuttled ships were broken up and sold for scrap during the 1920s.

 ** _New York Times_** **, August 22nd, 1933.**

 **Naval Veteran Killed In Robbery.**

 **-Ophelia Clemens**

The New York Police Department yesterday confirmed that the body found in a Lower East Side alley last week belonged to a U.S. Navy veteran named Sam Carsten. Mr. Carsten joined the U.S. Navy in 1909 and served on the battleship _Dakota_ throughout the war. He reached the rank of Petty Officer 3rd class and was commended for his part in breaking up a British spy ring on the Sandwich Islands. He fought in the capture of the Sandwich Islands and Battle of the Three Navies, as well as other minor skirmishes. Initial reports that his killing was related to political street violence were dismissed by the police department. A source said that they had made inquiries in the area and had no reports of violence so concluded that the killing was most probably a mugging. Mr. Carsten leaves behind a wife and two children.


	7. Chapter 7

Courtesy of AlternateHistory user FPSlover

 _The Greatest Raid of All: An Autobiography  
Admiral Sir George Ritchott, VC, CM, OM, 1st Duke Ritchott_

 **Chapter 10: The Raid**

I was the commanding officer of the _HMS Resolute_ , a destroyer in 1941. When the war broke out, the _Resolute_ was stationed in Portland, in the territory of Wabunaki (now called Maine once again). That day, I was visited by Admiral John Marshfield, who commanded the Atlantic fleet. He told me that we needed to strike at Boston. Boston was the major US shipyard in the Northeast.

Ships built there could threaten Portland, St Johns, even raid the Atlantic. We had to stop them. I traveled with Admiral Marshfield to Ottawa, where we planned the operation. The plan was that we would use the _Resolute_ , who was due to be scraped anyway, as a floating bomb. We would disguise the _Resolute_ as a U.S. destroyer and slip past the outer islands of the harbor, most of which had batteries on them. Then, we would ram the ship into the dockyard within the inner harbor.

After that, the commandos sent with us along with the crew of the _Resolute_ would slip into the shipyard and destroy targets of opportunity, mainly ships. Finally, we would board the _HMSVictorious_ and _HMS Death_ , which would force themselves into the inner harbor in all the confusion and hightail it back to Portland.

All told, assuming we do not get into any trouble, the attack should have been a smashing success. A round trip of a day at most. It took a week to convert the _Resolute_ to look like a U.S. destroyer. At noon on October 12th, the crew of the _Resolute_ , 200 men along with 200 commandos, all volunteers, boarded the _Resolute_. By 4 PM, we were within visual sight of the Outer batteries on Outer Brewster Island.

To my horror, they fired at us. Soon batteries on Great Brewster Island, Calf Island and Middle Brewster Island opened up on us as well. As soon as they heard the shelling through radar, the Victorious and the Death came in to support us. Both ships were Battleships, heavily armed and armored, thus, very well suited to smashing the defenses of Boston Harbor. And smash them they did.

Within ten minutes the guns on Outer Brewster Island were demolished. Within half an hour, the guns on Middle Brewster Island, Calf Island and Great Brewster Island were silenced. However, precious time had been lost with silencing the outer defenses. Now the defenders of the inner harbor knew we were coming.

Despite all that, we moved towards Lovell's Island, Gallop's Island and George's Island. Surprisingly, there were no batteries that we could see on any of the three islands. After the war, I learned that the governor of Massachusetts, John Clark, believed that the outer Islands' defenses would stop raiders and thus did not have batteries placed on the rest of the islands.

It was a mistake that we would take advantage of unknowingly. I ordered the three ships to continue into Dorchester Bay and the into the inner harbor. What we saw were latter identified as 12 Destroyers, 6 Battlecrusiers, 6 Cruisers, 4 Battleships and 1 Pocket Battlehsip. I knew then that we had hit the motherload. We swiftly rammed the Resolute into a open slip, right in the middle of the fleet. Then, we disembarked to cause some mischief.

The Commandos had bought several hundred time charges, to be used to blow up the enemy ships, docks and whatever else we found. We did a through search of the ships, expending valuable time. However all the ships were deserted. At the time, I wondered why. Was it a trap? Later I learned that the ships were being repaired and their crews had all gotten leave. I guess they did not think that this would happen.

We set charges on the ships, on the docks and the buildings nearby. As soon as we placed the last charge, we hear shooting. The Marines guarding the Shipyard had finally gone to see what had happened. We were several hundred yards away from where the _Death_ and _Victorious_ were mored up. We ended up making a fighting retreat and continued to fire on the Marines until we had cleared the docks and were out of range. The raid had cost us 53 men, 41 of them crew from the _Resolute_ and 12 Commandos. An hour latter, we saw a huge explosion, that we assumed came from Boston. We were right.

As it turned out, one of the buildings we had put a charge on to was the main Arsenal for the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, filled to the brim with explosives. As soon as we got into Portland, I went to see what had happened with the Harbor. We found out that the explosion had taken out not just the ships in Harbor, but Boston itself as well. The explosion had made a lot of buildings vanish. What the explosion had left behind, the fires took care of. Patriot propaganda put the death toll at a less than two thousand from what they said was a gas leak. After the war, I learned that the true casualty estimate was over eighty thousand people. I never told the man who set that charge the true death toll of that day.

Years latter, he found that out himself. The man who set that charge went on the become my son in law, General Robert Romick of the Royal Canadian Commandos. I know he still bears the pain of killing all those people.

As for me, I survived the war and was given the Victoria Cross and a title for my efforts. Some days I wonder what would of happened had the raid of failed or had we lost the First Great War, but I try not to think too hard of it. I have had a good life and a good family and I would not trade it for anything in the world.


End file.
